Rockstar Games denies Edinburgh sackings were act of 'revenge' against union
Dismissed staff made ‘disparaging’ comments, claims senior executive
A senior executive at Rockstar Games has denied that employees were dismissed in an act of “revenge” against a union.
Giving evidence at an employment tribunal, Robert Spampinato, the company’s global head of human resources, claimed the suggestion was “preposterous”, arguing that those who were dismissed had made “disparaging” comments which breached company policy.
The Grand Theft Auto (GTA) developer dismissed 34 employees in October last year, many from the Edinburgh office in Holyrood Road, over what the company said was “the sharing of confidential company information”.
Twenty-three of them are taking part in an employment tribunal, claiming they were unfairly dismissed for trade union activities.
They are being represented by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB).
Rockstar has said it will vigorously contest the tribunal, being held in Glasgow, and accused the former employees of breaching the company’s confidentiality rules by discussing sensitive information on a Discord server which had hundreds of participants.
Lawyers for the claimants are expected to allege that workers were unlawfully blacklisted and targeted for their union activities.
Those who brought the case against Rockstar, who had been working on GTA VI prior to their dismissals, held a rally on Thursday morning outside the Glasgow Tribunals centre, where the employees’ case against the company is being heard.
Attendees waved banners and chanted, and some of the former employees gave speeches recalling the moment last October they were told they were being sacked.
On Thursday, the tribunal continued hearing evidence from Mr Spampinato, the company’s vice president for human resources.
Richard O’Keefe, representing the claimants, put it to him the “trigger” for the sackings had been the company’s discovery that the IWGB union was “extremely close” to meeting the membership threshold that would require formal recognition by the company.
He said this information had come on October 7 2025, from an employee referred to as AB, who had been passing information about the Discord server to HR executive Charlie Kinloch since 2024.
The lawyer cited Mr Kinloch’s evidence that when he told Mr Spampinato about this, Mr Spampinato had instructed him to “ask AB to gather evidence of disparagement, breaches of information security, and of ex-employees being in the server”.
Mr Spampinato responded that the information passed by AB had led to a “conversation” involving a number of people, and that he and others had taken “guidance” on what to do next.
He added: “That was when we started getting a clearer picture of just how unhinged that Discord server was.”
The witness was also asked about a Slack message from Mr Ansari on October 13 in which he said their access to the Discord server will be “put on hold” in light of their “changed stance”.
They did not access the server again until October 24 – a full 11 days later.
The exchange became heated when the witness kept saying that he could not remember the specifics of what was discussed at the time.
Mr O’Keefe asked: “How can you not assist the tribunal with the fine detail of what was going on in that period?”
Mr Spampinato responded: “I take offence to that comment. I am being as helpful as I can. I do not remember something that happened a year ago.”
Later, Mr O’Keefe put it to the witness that on October 24 last year, AB passed Mr Kinloch posts suggesting the union had crossed the recognition threshold, which he said would have been passed to Mr Spampinato.
“When you read that, that’s when you decided to go ahead with the dismissals,” the lawyer said. Mr Spampinato replied: “That’s absolutely not true.”
Mr O’Keefe told the tribunal an “exercise” was then carried out whereby posts by the most prolific users in the channel were “searched” for comments that were either disparaging or gave rise to data security issues.
“It is no coincidence that most of the top 30 contributors on the Discord channel were dismissed,” Mr O’Keefe suggested.
Mr Spampinato replied that it was not a coincidence that those who posted the most frequently had also made the most “disparaging, policy breach posts”.
Mr O’Keefe went on to suggest that two individuals who were dismissed were “sacrificed for the purpose of plausible deniability”. The company’s vice president said: “That’s a ridiculous question.”
Mr O’Keefe put it to Mr Spampinato that the dismissals were made in “revenge against the Rockstar IWGB branch”. He denied this was the case, saying: “That’s preposterous.”
Rockstar’s head of licensing Jennifer Kolbe also gave evidence at the tribunal on Thursday. She spoke about how she had started her career at Rockstar as a receptionist before becoming one of its most senior figures.
Under questioning from IWGB lawyer Harry Stratton, she said she was the ultimate decision-maker in relation to the dismissals.
She said Rockstar had been in an “unprecedented situation” when the Discord server was discovered.
Ms Kolbe denied that Rockstar had “moles” within the server, saying they were “whistleblowers”.
A spokesperson for the video games developer said earlier: “Rockstar Games’ position has been clear and consistent throughout.
“Individuals across the UK and Canada were dismissed for gross misconduct following the sharing of confidential company information, not because of alleged trade union membership or activity.
“We reject the claims and will defend them vigorously before the tribunal.”
The tribunal continues before judge Lucy Wiseman.